


lost and low (you gave me hope)

by wrenstars



Series: sumitaba week 2020 [1]
Category: Persona 5
Genre: Anxiety, Developing Relationship, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Canon, Pre-Relationship, discussions about mental health
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:48:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25825420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wrenstars/pseuds/wrenstars
Summary: sumire, futaba, third year, and the ups and downs that come with it.
Relationships: Sakura Futaba/Yoshizawa Sumire
Series: sumitaba week 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1873864
Comments: 7
Kudos: 50





	lost and low (you gave me hope)

“So, it’s still too early to move in with your boyfriend, huh?”

Ren raises an eyebrow at her from his position by the sink. It’s a familiar scene, one they’ve recreated many times over the past year and a half: Futaba, seated at Leblanc’s counter, playing one of her games or ploughing through her homework while Ren washes the dishes, hot water cascading over his hands and leaving his skin red and wrinkled. 

Futaba’s beside him, sometimes, mostly during holidays. If she looks closely enough, Futaba feels like she’ll pierce the veil between reality and memory and see herself beside him, fresh out of her room, hands shaking as she methodically scrubbed coffee stains from the cups, her fingers pruning and soap studs clinging to her skin—the dishcloth had stopped drying her hands ten minutes into the job. Ren had encouraged her the entire time, a constant at her side, and helped her pick up pieces of broken porcelain. 

She scoffs to herself under her breath. God, she must be getting sentimental if she’s getting emotional about ghosts.

But it does feel a little ghostly in Leblanc. There are no customers, which is nothing unusual, but today it’s—it’s _different_. It’s just herself and Ren in the shop and, apart from the running water and soft music coming from her Switch, Leblanc is silent. The scent of coffee mixed with the subtle spice of curry is calming in a way Haru’s essential oils never are, because the coffee-and-curry mix smells like _home_.

It’s meditative, tranquil. Peaceful. 

For once, Futaba doesn’t feel the urge to tease Sojiro about the lack of customers. The chime of the bell and grating, demanding orders from customers would ruin the atmosphere they’ve built.

And, after all, Ren _is_ leaving. She reserves the right to be selfish and claim as much time alone with him as possible.

Ren turns the water off. He looks back at her, eyebrows raised.

“So Ryuji’s _not_ my boyfriend after all?”

Somehow, he manages to make his mild surprise and disappointment sound genuine even _with_ his stupid grin. 

Futaba rolls her eyes. 

“You _idiot_ ,” she groans. “That’s avoiding the question.” 

“Pushy today, are we?” 

He raises his hands when Futaba glares at him, though it’s far from an action of surrender: that Joker-esque smirk and glint to his eyes clearly state otherwise. 

“But you’re right,” he says, as he returns to the dishes with easy nonchalance. “Goro and I discussed rooming together, but we both agreed living apart for the time being is probably for the best. Besides, Ryuji and I have talked about being roommates before I moved away the first time. It’s nice to finally make it happen.”

Futaba bites her lip and looks down at her screen. She’s stopped her character in the middle of an open field, with nothing but sky and grass surrounding them. They stand idly by, completely at ease, even though a monster could emerge from the grass and attack any second. 

“That long, huh?” she mumbles.

Her fingers tap against the counter, agitated. 

Before his two-week sint in his hometown. That was a year ago. He’s been planning to move out for a year, has probably been thinking about his future for longer, and yet he’d never said a word until he and Ryuji had already found a place to live. Futaba doesn’t know why it surprises her, but it does.

And now there are only three days left. Three days until Amamiya Ren leaves for the second time, Morgana with him and accompanied by Ryuji. Three days until Ann wakes up for a 5a.m. flight to the first of many cities in Europe and begins her first international modelling and activist campaign. 

Two days until Sojiro’s send-off party for the third years. One day until Ren’s final shift at Leblanc. Yusuke had left Kosei’s dorms and moved in with Akechi as soon as his final semester finished. Makoto and Haru moved into the same apartment last year. 

Three days until Futaba is alone at Leblanc. 

Three days until she and Sumire are the only Phantom Thieves left, the only two still in high school, the only two remaining at Shujin. 

It’s all happened so fast, like she’d mindlessly stepped on a train and watched the scenery go by without taking any of it in, noticing nothing until she’d reached her destination and was left to wonder where the time had gone and how she’d arrived there. 

She wishes she’d had more opportunity, more _time_ , to take it all in. 

Her character’s idle animation kicks in: their eyes glaze over and stare into space, their foot absently tapping against the ground. _Mood_ , Futaba thinks, and slumps forward in her seat. It’s all so exhausting to keep up with. 

“Futaba?”

Futaba blinks rapidly and raises her head. Ren hovers nearby, close enough to reach out and touch but far enough that she still has space to breathe, dishwashing temporarily forgotten. He looks right at her and—oh. 

Oh no. 

He’d looking at her with that same steady, even look he’d give her while she was dragging her feet through Shujin, when she told him about Kana-chan and the lies she’d told her mother. All-seeing, all-knowing, but gentle and understanding at the same time. It makes her feel understood but exposed at the same time, all her secrets laid bare.

Ren’s brow ever so slightly furrows a little more the longer he looks at her.

“Is everything okay?” he asks-but-doesn’t-ask. He _knows_. He knows something’s playing up in her mind.

Futaba blows her fringe out of her eyes. It’s at the annoying length where it’s too long to leave hanging, but not long enough to be tied back.

“Yeah, ‘course,” she says. She stretches, averts her eyes and adds, as flippantly as possible, “It’s just gonna be lonely without you, that’s all.” 

She brings a knee to her chest and hugs it, resting her forehead on it. There’s an odd lump in her throat, one she doesn’t care to pay much attention to. It only grows bigger if she focuses on it.

Ren steps a little closer. He rests his hand on the table, close enough that Futaba can see it even with her hair turned away, but far enough that they don’t touch. 

“You can call me anytime,” he says evenly.

Futaba swallows. 

A monster catches sight of her character and charges forward. Futaba raises a hand and quickly busies herself with beating the enemy before it beats her character; her tongue sticks out from between her teeth as her character dodges and slashes with their sword. 

The monster goes down in second. Trash mob. Easy. Just like school, right? Futaba helped to take down a god, and _then_ someone with the powers of a god, she found his weakness _herself_ —two final bosses within two months. School is definitely a trash mob after all _that_. 

(Except the times when she suddenly found herself in the middle of the Monday rush for yakisoba, and had to sit in a corner of the library without lunch to calm down. Or when she’d asked Ann to check her grades for her because she was so worried about disappointing Sojiro. Or the two times she’d spent extended periods of time shut away in her room—

—Futaba pushes those thoughts from her mind. No. School _is_ the trash mob. If she still views it as a final-boss-disguised-as-the-second-boss as she once had, it means that she hasn’t made any progress. She’s getting better, she _is_ better. She’s about to be a third year. She has friends. She can walk around Yongen-Jaya herself and take the train and pick up groceries if Sojiro needs it. She’s _beyond_ the need for a key item anymore, right?) 

Futaba straightens in her seat and _grins_. “Nah, that won’t be necessary,” she says breezily, waving her hand like Ren’s concern is nothing more than a pesky little fly. “Third year is the final level, right? I’ve got all the necessary skills to handle it, _and_ I’ve pretty much reached max rank in stats.” She jabs herself in the chest. “Just you wait. The next time you see me, I’m gonna be a completely different person. I’ll have _evolved_.”

Because she already is a different person. She _is_. She doesn’t need to prove that to anybody, especially _Ren_ , but she’s gonna do it anyway. 

Ren shoves his hands in her pockets. Futaba bites her lip, worried that he’ll continue to question her, but then he shrugs. 

“Are you sure you’ll be able to see me at all through your hair?” 

Futaba barely manages to cover the surprised snort that comes from the bottom of her lungs, and makes up for it by leaning over the counter to punch Ren’s arm. 

* * *

Three days later, Ren walks out of Leblanc’s door with Morgana and a smile. 

_I believe in you_ , he’d told Futaba, _I always have_ , and all she’d been able to was hug him in return.

The cafe feels too big without him in it, too empty, like Ren took a part of its soul with him (or two parts, if she counts Morgana. Which she should. She’s no longer going to be able to annoy him by petting him and there won’t be an obnoxiously loud voice demanding sushi during every dinner). She bears it for exactly five minutes before she tells Sojiro she needs to prepare for the upcoming school year and hurries back to her room. 

The slam of the door sounds like a long exhale of relief. 

* * *

**SUMIRE:** practice finished! 

**SUMIRE:** *attached image* 

**FUTABA:** h

**FUTABA:** two things

**FUTABA:** one. how do you still look nice after exercise exercise makes me look like a scarecrow

**FUTABA:** two.

**FUTABA:** SCHOOL STARTS TOMORROW WHY ARE YOU TRAINING SO LATE

**FUTABA:** ffs i don’t think you’d survive mona living with you

**SUMIRE:** oh this is nothing!! i’ve used to train late after palace infiltrations, those were much worse

**FUTABA:** what the FUCK how high is your endurance stat 

**FUTABA:** pls share your secrets so i don’t constantly die in gym class 

**SUMIRE:** join me for practice and i can teach you!!

**FUTABA:** HARD PASS your practices are BRUTAL

**FUTABA:** i saw ren after he returned from your “““training sessions””” 

**FUTABA:** are u sure u didn’t just torture him. 

**FUTABA:** are u sure you can’t just give me a cheat code.

**SUMIRE:** that defeats the purpose of training, futaba-san!

**SUMIRE:** how are you supposed to improve if you don’t continue challenging yourself? 

**SUMIRE:** your muscles need to be worked hard enough to break down if you’re to build anything from their rubble! (*^-^)

**FUTABA:** . 

**FUTABA:** you’ve spent too much time with akechi 

**FUTABA:** you’re just slightly terrifying 

**FUTABA:** has anyone told you that

**SUMIRE:** not at all!

**FUTABA:** well i’ll tell you now

**FUTABA:** i’ll also tell you at school tomorrow this is something that needs to be said in person

**SUMIRE:** i look forward to it! （＾∀＾）

**FUTABA:** can’t believe you’re looking forward to something at sCHOOL 

**SUMIRE:** oh no shujin is terrible

**SUMIRE:** i’m just excited to see you again, futaba-san! (*^-^)

**SUMIRE:** it’s been a while since we properly spent time together, i’ve missed you (╥_╥)

**FUTABA:** wow warn a gamer before you get sappy

**SUMIRE:** it’s the truth though!

**SUMIRE:** want to try and meet at the station tomorrow?

**SUMIRE:** i know we use different lines and the timing may be tricky, but it’ll be a nice way to start the school year

**FUTABA:** ARE YOU KIDDING ME YES 

**FUTABA:** i mean

**FUTABA:** /clears throat/

**FUTABA:** yes

**FUTABA:** please

**FUTABA:** that would be appreciated

* * *

Futaba doesn’t _hate_ trains, by any means.

Normally, she doesn’t mind them: they’re fast, direct and convenient. She’s ridden on them often, many times without a care in the world, and if she ever _did_ start to care about the crowds of people around her and constant _tap-tap-tap_ of dirty fingers on phone screens and the press of their bodies against hers she’d put her headphones on, crank the volume up and drown the rest of the world out. So, all in all, she actually finds trains quite bearable.

But some days, it’s different. Some days she wakes up with an anxious monster clawing at her chest, paw pressed on her windpipe so she can barely breathe. Some days she looks outside and her lungs stop working because the world feels too small compared to her room, which is just large enough. Some days she’ll leave the house and feel fine, but then she’ll do something small and silly like trip over a rock, and the stares of everyone around her become too much, too intense, too much to handle. Those are the times where she goes from finding trains bearable to _despising_ them.

Ren used to be her backup party member, ready to join her team whenever she required him. He wouldn’t do much, never probed too deeply if she wasn’t up to talking, but it was reassuring to know that, even if they planned on taking different trains or he was sleeping in, he was a backup item in her times of need. 

But she doesn’t have that option anymore. Today is the first day since she first started at Shujin—the first time since she first walked through its halls, even—that Ren won’t be going, too.

Which shouldn’t be a problem. It _isn’t_ a problem. She’s a third-year now, taller and wiser and more dignified than before and all that crap that comes with getting older. Her fringe has now grown so much that she can tuck it behind her ears and it won’t fall in her eyes. And as part of that _getting older_ process and _getting better_ , taking the train is second nature, an almost daily habit. 

(Even though it hasn’t exactly been _daily_ for a while; Ren, Ryuji and Yusuke’s college preparation and Sumire’s training camp had kept social interaction and travel to a minimum. But Futaba has no doubt it’ll be fine—refamiliarising herself with trains and crowds will be like returning to a game she hasn’t touched in a while. She’ll be a pro after a few minutes spent remembering the gameplay mechanics.)

So why does the mere thought of leaving Leblanc make her chest feel so _tight_? 

Futaba lingers at Leblanc’s counter long after Sojiro took and washed her empty plate, absently playing shitty-but-brain-distracting games on her phone in an attempt to tap away the suffocating sensation in her chest. It’s only her organised plans with Sumire that get her body moving, have her saying goodbye to Sojiro and walking out of the door on time, even though she feels distant in her own body. She sticks her headphones on and blasts the Neo Featherman soundtrack as she walks, hands shoved into her jacket pockets and her shoulders hunched over. Her eyes remain fixated on the ground. She almost wishes for her fringe back, if only so she can partially hide her eyes.

The journey takes far too long; the time on her phone barely changes even as she urges it on, hardly able to breathe the crowded train’s too-hot, too-stuffy air. She stumbles getting onto the platform in her haste, but it’s fine. Everyone’s looking at their phones and no one noticed. She completed the journey like any other ordinary third-year student. She’s doing _fine_. 

Futaba lifts her head just enough to maneuver the crowd and look out for Sumire. There’s no immediate flash of red hair in the crowd and, for a paralysing moment, Futaba wonders if she’ll be able to find Sumire at all. 

“Oh, Futaba-san! Over here!”

Ah, there she is, against the wall. Sumire waves wildly, and even stands on her tiptoes to see over the crowd. Futaba inhales deeply, pulls her headphones down, and heads on over. One step at a time. 

“Yo,” she greets. She pauses before adding, “Wow. The longer hair really suits you.”

Sumire beams and tugs on the ends of her hair. She’s grown slightly since they first met—though Futaba’s grown a little too, she still has to crank her up to get a good look at her—and her red hair softly frames her face, her fringe long since grown out. 

She’s beautiful. She always has been, but somehow only grows _prettier_ the more time passes.

“Thanks. It’s a relief to not have to worry about it getting in my eyes in training anymore.” Sumire offers Futaba a smile. “Your hair looks really nice, too.”

“Pssh.” Futaba shrugs, as though the compliment means nothing to her, as though she hadn’t made the decision to grow her fringe out after noticing how nice Sumire looked with her own grown out. “Yeah, well, helps me see my games more clearly and all that.”

She looks to the side and clears her throat. What a ridiculous thing to say. She cannot _believe_ she just said that. 

But Sumire laughs—with her, not _at_ her, good natured and genuine.

“I’ve missed you Futaba-san,” she says warmly. “It’s good to see you again.”

Futaba flushes. “You too,” she admits, rocking on her heels. Her lips twist up into a grin. “You sure are better company than lovestruck _Ren_ , at least.”

Sumire snorts, the sound once again dissolving into surprised, delighted laughter. It wouldn’t sound out of place on Risette’s latest album. 

Her laughter dies as a cluster of Shujin students pass. Futaba grimaces as one of them accidentally bumps into her and she shuffles out of the way. 

“Shall we get going?” Sumire sighs, hitching her bag further up her shoulder. Apparently she took that as much of a cue as Futaba did. 

Futaba pulls a face. “If we must,” she grumbles, jamming her hands in her pockets once again. She nudges Sumire with her elbow. “Tell me more about your training camp.”

She does better when someone else is talking, taking up her attention, and Sumire’s always becomes so animated and lively when she talks about gymnastics—a win on two counts.

Sure enough, Sumire grins and launches into a retelling of a training camp story. Futaba listens, smiles, and focuses on her breathing. 

* * *

“Oh, we’re in the same class!”

Sumire’s exclamation rises above the other myriad chitchat of the other students. She turns to Futaba, a smile as bright as her Bless attacks on her face. “That’s some good luck, huh?”

Futaba nods slowly. Her lips stretch into a smile on instinct, though the information is still sinking in. 

Class. Class with _Sumire_. 

A knot unties itself in Futaba’s chest. There’s someone she knows in her class, someone she (really) likes and is _friends with_ —it’s a vast improvement to the previous year, where every face had been that of a stranger and all attention had been on her.

Sumire may end up being a welcome distraction, too. 

“Alright! We’re on this train together; there’s no getting off now!.”

Sumire furrows her brow and purses her lips in thought. And then her expression clears and she gasps, her eyes glimmering. “Oh! That from Last Fantasy 7, right? I understood that one!”

Her joy is infectious; Futaba can’t stop herself smiling back. “About time you started picking these things up,” she teases. 

Sumire makes an affronted noise. “I’m getting there.”

“Only thanks to _my_ exemplary tutelage.” 

“I wasn’t entirely clueless about video games before I met you, Futaba-san! At least give me _some_ credit.”

Futaba snickers. “Yes, yes. But you were but a grasshopper before you met _me_.” She grabs Sumire’s wrist before she can argue. “Now c’mon! We need to go snag the best seats in the room before they’re stolen.” 

Sumire yelps as Futaba pulls her onward, but soon recovers and falls into step beside her. It’s almost like they’re walking through the school hand-in-hand. 

(She wouldn’t mind if they were.)

For the first time that day, hope blossoms in Futaba’s chest despite the awful, anxious feeling still twisting in her stomach. 

Maybe this year won’t be so awful after all. 

* * *

Futaba sighs, an action drawn from the very bottom of her lungs that sounds like a fizzled-out wind spell. She slumps on the table, buries her head between the pages of her literature textbook and groans like a wounded animal. 

Literature’s a curse. A blight on the earth.

Sumire sends Futaba a concerned (yet amused) look over the top of her glasses.

“That was quite a heavy sigh, Futaba-san,” she notes, lowering the textbook she’d been quinting at. “Are you okay? Do you have _any_ air left in your lungs after that?” 

Futaba snorts, rolling her eyes. “I _don’t_ , and it’s all literature’s fault. Sue the stupid subject for me.” She raises her head so her chin is propped up on her textbooks’ pages and looks at Sumire in the eyes. “Sumi,” she says, entirely serious, “Help me all-out attack literature from the face of the _Earth_.”

Sumire laughs.

“I’d love to do that to math,” she says lightly, rubbing her forehead, “But I’m not sure that’s how it works.”

She pulls off her glasses, cleans them, then props them back on her face and grabs one of her highlighters. Her notes are so neat; her diagrams and subsequent explanations arranged into precise columns, labelled with heads and subheadings and appropriately colour-coded. As Futaba watches, Sumire finishes highlighting and turns to work through a set of questions. She rests her head in her hand as she works, tongue sticking out as her face twists into a mix of dread and concentration. 

Her ability to plod along consistently during her least favourite subject never fails to amaze Futaba. She’s learned enough about how her brain works to understand _why_ her concentration only comes in short bursts while studying literature and not to beat herself up for it, but she still tends to get frustrated. 

Futaba yawns and throws herself back against her seat, stretching her arms overhead. “I’m sure we can make _something_ work,” she muses. She thinks the process through, ticking each point off her fingers. “Recreate the Metaverse somehow. Find literature in Mementos. It pains me to do it to math, too, but it makes you sad so I’ll do it. Wipe them both from the public’s cognition. I never have to analyse another paragraph again.” She throws her hands into the air. “Boom, _solved_! We’re fucking geniuses!” 

She goes to high-five Sumire. Sumire blinks, stunned like Futaba is a bright light and she’s just been blinded, but then she grins and swings her hand, the slap of their hands vibrating across the room. 

Futaba is suddenly grateful for Sumire’s immense strength—the force of her swing throws Futaba’s hand back, and her surprise is enough to override the sudden urge to curl their fingers together and hold hands.

“That _is_ a genius idea,” Sumire agrees wryly, “Though it’ll probably take less effort to just make it through exams.”

Futaba drums her fingers against her chin. 

“You’re probably right,” she sighs, “But it’s nice to think about.” Futaba looks back at her homework, reads through a single sentence and feels a headache beginning to form. She scowls. “God, what I’d give to speed through literature as fast as I speed through math and science.”

She taps her pen against her textbook as she tries to think the question through. She can see parts of the answer, scattered far apart like stars, but it’s like trying to piece together a constellation without knowing what she’s looking for: the abstract just isn’t coming together.

Sumire looks at her, tilting her head. Then she picks her chair up and drags it next to Futaba’s, taking her seat beside her. 

“Here,” she says, shuffling closer even as Futaba freezes, “What are you currently stuck on?” 

She’s so close that Futaba can feel the warmth radiating from Sumire’s skin. She clears her throat, points to the offending question and Sumire nods, the familiar crease of concentration forming between her eyebrows. Then her expression clears. “Ah, I see what your problem is,” she says, nodding, and leans over.

Sumire’s arm brushes Futaba’s as she highlights a line of text, leaving a tingling sensation in its wake. Futaba’s eyes flick from the page to Sumire’s face, so close to her own. A few loose strands of hair fall into Sumire’s eyes as she works, and there’s a streak of something red on the base of her chin. Futaba wonders if she could lean in close and count the number of faint freckles on Sumire’s nose, a testament to her recent time in the sun.

She must’ve been staring longer than she intended, for Sumire turns to face her, frowning.

“Is something on my face?” she asks. 

She rubs at her cheek, removing the red streak in the process. Futaba shakes her head. 

_No, it’s nothing,_ she means to say. 

“Let’s go grab something to eat when we’re done,” she blurts instead. “We deserve it after slogging through this.”

Her cheeks immediately turn deep, bright red. But Sumire perks up, just as she always does when food is mentioned. “That sounds lovely!” she exclaims. “Do you have anything in mind?”

Oh. On the spot decisions. Futaba feels her cheeks grow warmer, if that was even possible, as she hastily casts her mind around. “Ramen?”

It’s a good call—Sumire beams, her smile brighter than Feather Gold’s new outfit. “Perfect.”

Futaba’s heart skips a beat. 

“Then that’s settled!” she exclaims. She returns to her studying with renewed vigor. “C’mon, get me through literature so I can get _you_ through math so we can go out already!”

Maybe literature isn’t a curse at all. 

* * *

Little by little, they fall into a routine.

Perhaps _routine_ is too strong a word. For one, routines _suck_. And two, routines suggest something like a circle: a pattern without interruption and occurs consistently, over and over. Sumire has too many training sessions to go to, Futaba has too many games be absorbed by and shady corporations to hack, and they both like to sleep in too much for them to have a fully undisrupted routine.

But patterns do crop up over the next few months. They run into each other at the station and then travel to school together, Sumire looking over Futaba’s shoulder to view her phone; they meet for lunch and share each other’s food; they study in the library and doodle on each other’s notes. Futaba ropes Sumire into a fully commenatated Featherman marathon, Sumire finally teaches Futaba how to do a cartwheel. They spend hours texting each other, long into the night. 

The distance between them closes when they walk,when they sit together, when they stand beside each other. It’s at the point that their bodies are almost always brushing against each other.

School is still the absolute fucking worst, but there’s a distinctly Sumire-shaped light to brighten Futaba’s day. It’s not Maruki-dreamworld levels of joy, but this is better—this is real. Futaba hums on her way to the station, a slight skip in her step, smiling whenever she receives a text notification.

She feels like absolutely nothing can go wrong.

* * *

Until, of course, it does, like the heroes reaching the top of the world before it’s all sent to hell.

Until everything becomes too much, too stressful, too _overwhelming_. Until the world feels too big and too small at the same time. 

Until staying in her room suddenly feels like a much better option than going back to school, or exposing herself to the world.

* * *

**SUMIRE:** futaba-san, are you okay?

**FUTABA:** nope!! 

**FUTABA:** i think i caught something :((((((((

**SUMIRE:** i’m so sorry to hear that

**SUMIRE:** i don’t know if Boss stores tea, but see if he has ginger or honey and lemon!

**SUMIRE:** they’re good for colds

**SUMIRE:** unless chamomile works better for your symptoms?

**FUTABA:** i’m sure he has SOME tea he can’t live off of coffee even tho he wants to

**FUTABA:** i’ll send him a text

(She won’t.)

**SUMIRE:** that’s good to hear!

**SUMIRE:** i hope you get better soon, futaba-san!!（っ・∀・）っ

**FUTABA:** thx

**FUTABA:** im sure i’ll get over it soon 

(She has to, right? She’s done it before.)

**FUTABA:** now return to class before makoto astral-projects into our text convos and tells us to stop talking in class

**SUMIRE:** makoto-senpai can be a little scary like that!

**SUMIRE:** take care of yourself o(^-^)o

Futaba closes the chat with a sigh of relief.

Sumire’s message isn’t the only one in her inbox—there’s one from Ren, and there’s Yusuke’s delayed response to the text she’d sent three days ago. 

Futaba closes the app, shoves her phone off of her bed and closes her eyes as though this awful, consuming feeling in her chest was something she could wake up from. 

* * *

She misses one day of school, then two. 

She tells Sojiro that she’s ill, that she needs to rest. He doesn’t look entirely convinced but, for now, he doesn’t push it: Futaba knows that he’ll give her the time and space she needs. Unless it lasts for too long. He’ll do something if it does, and Futaba won’t blame him. She knows it’s in her best interest.

But, until then, she’s left to her own devices. Her homework lies forgotten in a corner, and her day is instead filled with playing video games she has no particular interest in, hacking because she can, and snooping on her friends. She spots a man trying to snoop on Sumire’s personal information and informs her of the offence. Sumire brightly reports that her coach kicked the man out with his tail between his legs a few minutes later.

It’s not fun, by any means. Nothing is _fun_. She doesn’t stay in her room because she _enjoys it_ or she _likes it more_ —it’s just better than anything else, even if the margin between the two is miniscule. Everything she does is simply something that fills the time.

On the third day, she’s halfway through a mind-numbing rewatch of her least favourite Featherman season, sprawled in a messy heap on her bed with her laptop positioned on her chest, when there’s a knock on her door.

“Futaba-san?” Sumire calls. Futaba stills. “Are you okay? I brought some tea with me; this brand really helps me when I’m unwell. I also collected our homework if you needed it.”

The only sound in the room is the generic, poorly-composed villain theme song, but even _that_ is preferable to otherwise complete silence. A large soda can is open and emptied besides Futaba’s bed, but her mouth is suddenly dry. She opens her mouth, tries to speak, but her words can’t make it to her tongue.

Futaba swallows. There’s barely any saliva in her mouth.

Sumire knocks again. “Futaba-san?”

Her voice is laced with concern, and so much kindness. The laptop is suddenly an oppressive weight on Futaba’s lungs: she hastily pushes it off and rolls over to where she’d last left her phone half-buried under her pillows, a million different possible responses flying through her head.

 _No_.

 _Sure am_.

 _I guess_.

 _For the most part_.

**FUTABA** : nope

she somehow manages to type out.

**FUTABA:** i’m not

Her fingers are so shaky.

“Oh,” Sumire says, “I see.” 

A breath, in and out. Sumire clears her throat. “May I come in?”

**FUTABA:** no

“No problem. Shall I leave the homework by your door and leave, then?”

**FUTABA** : only if you want to

A pause. “I should leave only if I want to?” Futaba imagines Sumire shaking her head. “Futaba-san, do you want me to stay?”

 _YesnoIthinkpossiblycertainlyIdon’tknow_.

Futaba brings her knees to her chest and buries her head in them, squeezing her eyes shut.

What _does_ she want?

She doesn’t know anymore.

She isn’t sure if she ever has.

There’s a dull thud on the other side of the door, the muffled sound of someone hitting the ground. It’s Sumire, sitting with her back to the door. 

“I can’t say I exactly know what you’re going through,” Sumire says. Her voice is close by; it sounds like she’s on the other side of the door, sitting against it. “I never asked for details. But I do think I understand this: it feels easier, doesn’t it? To shut yourself away? Your problems aren’t gone, you don’t even understand them or know what they exactly are, but it’s easier to be alone with them than to be around everyone else.”

Futaba blinks. Sumire may as well have peered into her mind, found what she was thinking, and spoken the words Futaba could feel but couldn’t say—and in a better, more precise way than Futaba could’ve managed to boot.

Slowly, she peels herself off her bed and stands. She stumbles, her left leg giving way slightly; it’s numb and bloodless thanks to the funny way she’s been lying on it, but she manages to drag herself to the door despite the pins and needles. She presses her back to the door and slides down, highly aware of the few centimetres’ width between herself and Sumire.

**FUTABA:** yup. it’s the worst

**FUTABA:** sounds like u speak from experience

“Yes,” Sumire says heavily. “I do.” She exhales deeply. Her next words come out slowly, heavily, carefully considered and full of meaning. “When Kasumi died… I couldn’t bear it. The pitying looks from everyone else. The heartbreak in my parents’ eyes. How quiet it was. But what I couldn’t stand most was my own guilt, my own despair. It felt like it ate up all the air of whatever room I walked into, suffocating it.” She huffs. “I could barely leave my room for days after. I barely made it out for her funeral.”

Another pause. From the other side of the door, Sumire draws in a heavy, shaky breath.

“And the day after Maruki’s palace… If third semester hadn’t started the next day, and if I hadn’t overheard you guys planning to infiltrate, I think I would’ve gone back to my room. And who knows how long I would’ve stayed there? It would’ve been so easy to stay there. I still feel that way, sometimes.

 **FUTABA:** srsly? 

“Mm. Seriously.” Sumire sighs. “The grief never really goes away. Self-hatred isn’t unlearned overnight. There are plenty of days that I wake up and don’t want to get out of bed. Some days, it still happens.” There’s a small thud, a small vibration of the door; it’s likely Sumire resting her head against the wood. “It sucks, doesn’t it, when it’s like this?” she continues, her voice quieter. “You _know_ you’ve made progress but when you end up back in your room, back in that mindset… You wonder if it was all a dream. If you were faking it the entire time. And _then_ you wonder if you’ll be able to come out of it this time. And that’s what scares you the most.”

She sounds smaller by the time she’s finished, like she’s shrunken into herself, curled into a protective ball or giving herself a hug. 

Futaba grips her phone, grateful for her non-existent strength: she could’ve easily shattered the screen otherwise. 

In all the time Sumire has been with them, she’s never considered in depth just how much she’s been through, or if she’d been coping well with it all. Sumire had been upbeat enough in Maruki’s palace, had resummoned her Persona with all of Cendrillon’s quiet strength and determination, so Futaba hadn’t worried too much about how she was adjusting. It had felt enough to encourage and cheer her on from the sidelines. 

She’d been so pretty, so graceful, so capable—and that hasn’t changed. Futaba hadn’t ever paused to consider that, just maybe, they’ve have similar experiences. 

Futaba stands. She rests her hand on the doorknob, her hand trembling. “I’m opening the door,” she announces, barely above a murmur. And then she pulls it back.

Sumire yelps slightly as the door gives way, but she’s quick to recover, hastily getting to her feet. Futaba only opens the door a crack, but it’s enough for Sumire to glimpse her entire body: limp, tangled hair; the random clothes she’d picked off the floor based on cleanliness and comfort rather than style; the dark eyebags beneath her eyes from the restless, sleepless nights.

“I thought I’d be over it by now,” she croaks. She clears her throat. “I thought third year would mean a fully evolved, better _me_.”

Sumire laughs humourlessly. “I know what you mean.” And then, somehow, miraculously: she smiles a small, tired smile. “But if there’s anything I’ve learned from our senpai, it’s that recovery isn’t linear.”

God, she’s heard that before. Futaba shoves her hands in her pockets, kicks out at empty air. “Doesn’t make it any easier.”

“It doesn’t, does it?” Sumire muses.

Futaba meets Sumire’s eyes. They don’t say anything—Futaba can barely hear Sumire’s quiet breaths over the music from the still-going, overlong boss fight scene—but something shifts. A mutual understanding. A mutual acceptance. It doesn’t feel good, per say, to expose all of her ugly feelings and know that her friend has experienced similar burdens. And yet, at the same time, it does.

Futaba pulls the door open a little more.

“Come in,” she says, rubbing her eyes. “You’ve missed the worst arc and the worst battle. There’s only two episodes left of season five.”

* * *

They don’t end up watching the end of season five. Futaba puts on the most recent Featheman movie and they watch that instead, huddled on the corner of Futaba’s bed.

They barely speak again, both finding it more comfortable to exist in mutual silence, but it isn’t unpleasant. Sojiro brings them two heaping bowls of curry for dinner, and Sumire asks for seconds. Her ability to demolish the second bowl in a time close to the first is almost more entertaining than season six’s climax.

Sumire receives a text from her coach. She sends one back, informing her that she won’t be able to attend practice that evening.

It’s dark by the time Sumire has to leave—they’d finished the movie long ago, and skipped to the final season. Both of them lost track of time somewhere between the curry and the fifth episode.

“Should I come back tomorrow?” Sumire asks.

Futaba shrugs. “I don’t see any reason why you _shouldn’t_.”

Sumire smiles. “Understood.” She lingers in the doorway and looks over her shoulder. “Goodnight, Futaba. Take care.”

She’s already closed the door by the time that Futaba has processed the loss of honorific. 

* * *

Futaba still doesn’t come out of her room the next day, but she opens the door to Sumire.

Sumire arrives with nothing but a quick text, a smile and a mild comment of “If Ushimura thinks he can throw chalk at _me_ , he must be firmly out of his mind,” before she joins Futaba on the floor. She’d brought a large bag of snacks with her, and they make their way through half of them before they even contemplate opening their textbooks and going over the content Futaba had missed.

They finish the work. They put another movie on. Sojiro comes by again, this time with sushi. Sumire once again puts in a request for seconds. 

It’s easy. It’s so easy to live her life like this. It would be so easy to _continue_ living like this. 

Does she want to leave her room tomorrow? 

If she’s being brutally honest then no, she doesn’t. Her room doesn’t necessarily feel _better_ or _safer_ than anywhere else—she’s starting to hate her mattress, the scent of her blankets, the worn path she’s recreated between her bed and her computer. Her room is not an oasis but the lesser of two evils. She could ignore school, ignore exams, ignore people, create several bestselling apps and make so much money that Sojiro could close Leblanc and she would never have to set foot outside of her room again.

Again, it would be so easy. But she’s left feeling so _unsatisfied_ by that. 

She thinks of Ann, overseas in a foreign country in an effort to pursue her dreams. She thinks of Yusuke, surprising critics and the public alike with every piece he unveils. She thinks of Akechi, everything he’s done, and everything he’s doing to make up for it. 

She thinks of Sumire, of the self-belief she fought so hard to achieve and fights tooth and nail to maintain her grip on, and the gruelling training she puts herself through daily to reach her dreams.

She thinks of herself, of the progress she’s been making. Of the progress she could continue to make.

She wonders what Al Azif would say to her, what truths they could uncover, if they could see her now. She wonders if she’d cover her ears to the truth, just like she used to do. 

But she’s aware of the truth, isn’t she? She’s already admitted it to herself—she’s unsatisfied. She knows shutting herself in her room isn’t the healthiest way to live, even when it feels like the best of two bad options. 

Recovery isn’t linear.

It might feel like a bad option now, but she knows it’ll be a better one in the long run. And she _wants_ to get better. She wants to keep working at it, to keep herself going. Just because she no longer has a Persona that can evolve doesn’t mean that she can’t stop making changes.

And those changes always start with herself.

Baby steps. Recovery isn’t linear. 

So, before Sumire leaves, Futaba pulls her aside and asks, “Can you stop by tomorrow so we can go to school together?”

Her stomach twists, partially dreading the answer, but she needn’t have worried—Sumire responds with a smile. “Of course,” she says, squeezing Futaba’s arm. 

And she does. She’s waiting by the gates to Futaba’s home, and waves when Futaba falls into step by her side. “How’s it going?” she asks, pocketing her phone.

Futaba shrugs. “It’s going,” she says, and all Sumire has to do is nod for Futaba to know that she understands.

It’s not a perfect day; in fact, it’s far from it. But it’s better, just a little bit better, a step in the right direction. She follows this with the next step the next day, and then another, and another after that, until a week passes. A month. A semester.

It never exactly gets easier—it never really had, now that Futaba thinks about it. She’d just kept going, kept learning, kept evolving. Even on the hardest days, she just needs to keep pushing her way through.

So that’s what she’ll do. She’ll just keep pushing.

* * *

One day, a few months later, Futaba’s phone vibrates as she steps off the train.

**SUMIRE:** i’m sorry, futaba. i won’t be at school today

**SUMIRE:** today i just… can’t 

Her words lack their usual energy, lackluster in their expression and vocabulary. Futaba doesn’t need to be a natural at literature to notice the tonal shift and decipher the reason behind it.

**FUTABA:** dw about it!

**FUTABA:** rest & play video games for a day

**FUTABA:** i’ll take notes for u so just take care!!

Sumire’s response is a few seconds late, coming in the space of a lost, appreciative breath.

**SUMIRE:** thank you, futaba

**FUTABA:** np

**FUTABA:** we’re co-players on this difficulty, right?

**FUTABA:** i got ur back <3

**SUMIRE:** (∩_∩)

Futaba shuts off her phone, adjusts her bag, and hurries towards school. 

She focuses intently in class, scribbling out as many possible and tidying her scrawl during lunch. She’s out of the classroom door as soon as school finishes, and then she’s on the train, then the next, then she’s in the streets of Yongen-Jaya and finally in Leblanc.

“Special order, Sojiro!” she calls over the chime of the cafe’s bells. “Chop chop!”

“This is a _business_ , Futaba,” Sojiro grumbles. “I can’t drop everything for you.”

An elderly couple are his only other customers. Sojiro sighs, pretends not to notice Futaba’s raised eyebrows, and complies.

Futaba’s out of the cafe five minutes later, an extra-large container of curry in her hands. Her heart races and, God, there are too many people and the train is too small—but she has her courage, her will, and her determination to keep taking that next step.

And she keeps taking it, one foot in front of the other, until she ends up in front of Sumire’s door.

Futaba raises her hand and knocks.

“Sumire?” she calls. “I’m here, if you need me.”

**Author's Note:**

> i went into royal expecting to like them and came away absolutely loving them. anyway sumitaba gfs. 
> 
> title from oh wonder's 'ultralife' 
> 
> talk to me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/agicelestines)!


End file.
